Yes, it is now possible to build all these cool stuff with Air 2.0 & MacBook.

MacBooks have a device called SMS ( Sudden Motion Sensor ) which can act as our Accelerometer. And using Air 2.0’s NativeProcess, we can invoke a native program to give us the Accelerometer data. Here is how the flow goes:

I got a simple C-Program called “motion” (bundled in the below package) which can give me X,Y & Z co-ordinates of Accelerometer & print on the console. I execute the process using NativeProcess API & capture the console output.

I made a wrapper class called “MBAcceleromoter” to make this entire process easier.

Adobe Dev Summit is back to present you the latest happenings of Adobe Flash Platform. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to hear from the experts about the power & awesomeness of Adobe Flash Platform & Flash Builder 4.

Date : 4th August 2009, Tuesday

Time : 9 AM to 6 PM

Where : Lalit Ashok, Bangalore

What more ? You can attend this event for FREE using Gold Pass or pay nominal fee of Rs. 3000/- ( or Rs. 2500/- before 24th July 2009 ) for Platinum pass and get a Flex Builder 3 Professional license forFREE.

You can click “Next” & choose “ZfApiSoap” from port combo box. This would automatically be selected for most of the WebServices.

Click “Select All” button to select all operations or optionally you could also select only few operations that you are going to use in this project.

Click on “Finish” button.

Step 2 : Explore WebService

Have a look at “Data/Services” panel placed next to “Problems” view or Choose “Window->Data/Services” if the view is not available already.

You can see that the WebService is introspected and all the Data types & Operations/Methods/Functions inside your WebService along with its signatures are displayed under your service name i.e. “ZenfolioService”.

Thats the beauty of Data Centric Development. It makes your life a lot easier while working with your backends.

We are going to use a method/operation called “GetPopularPhotos” which is available inside this WebService and as you can see in the “Data/Services” panel, this operation is taking two parameters namely “offset” & “limit” and returning an array of “Photo” objects as output.

Step 3 : Bind Components to Data

As shown in the screenshot, place a “Label” on top as header, “List” component on the left side and an “Image” component to the right of “List”.

Enter the “ID” for Image component as “imgPhoto”

Now, we need to bind the response of “GetPopularPhotos” to the “List” component in our UI. So, select the List in Design View and choose “Bind to data” in context-menu that comes when you right-click on this component.

Select “GetPopularPhotos” operation from “Operation” combo that appears in “Bind to Data” dialog and select “Title” from “Bind to field” combo box.

As “GetPopularPhotos” operation is expecting two arguments, you will automatically be taken to Code view where you need to enter values for arguments for example “1,50”. So, your final call would look something like below

Easily invoke & show the data from services using simple Drag & Drop and other gestures

Automatic client side Paging

Automatic client side Data Management

Automatic Input & Output Form Generation

Automatic Master-Detail view generation

Whole of this workflow can be categorized into 4 important steps. They are:

1. Connect to Data/Service

In this step, user is supposed to Import existing service by providing File path (for ColdFusion/PHP) or URL (for HTTPService/WebService) or Destination name (for BlazeDS/LCDS) to the service or generate a new service (for ColdFusion/PHP only). This step can be done using “Data->Connect to Data/Service” menu item.

2. Explore Service

Once the service is imported or created, all the available functions/methods along with its signatures from your backend service would appear in “Data/Services” panel inside Flash Builder.

3. Configure Return Type

In most of the cases, Flash Builder automatically identifies the data type of input arguments and return type of the operations by introspecting your server code & metadata. But, in some cases, Flash Builder would need to invoke the operation, introspect the output returned by the operation and create client-side ActionScript VOs if required.

4. Bind Components to Data

Once Flash Builder knows the Input argument types or Return types of the operation, you can start binding the output returned by these operations to UI elements like DataGrid, List, Button, ComboBox, Form, Charts etc..

Over the next few days, I will be explaining in detail about each of these wizards and backend specific workflows to make your life exciting with DCD.

If you are a Flex/Flash/AIR developer and think you can be the one behind the coolest of all RIAs, you cannot afford to miss this event! Put on your RIA development shoes, build the coolest app that you can imagine and send it to us on or before 26th November 2008. If your application catches our attention, you will be invited to a very special event on the 29th of November at Grand Ashok, Bangalore where the top applications will go on stage for a demo showdown! This is your chance to Flash your design skills, Flex your coding muscles and AIR your demos in front of an elite judge panel & the Adobe community.

The Grand winner / winning team will walk away with a groovy Apple IPhone.

The runners up will take home with them a Sony home theater system.

What’s more, there are loads of IPod Nano’s, shuffles and Adobe branded goodies to be won.

This event also brings to you an exclusive preview on the new developments in the Adobe Flash Platform. Experience the Flash Catalyst (code name Thermo), Gumbo(code name for the upcoming version of Flex) ,FXG and Flash Player 10.

Hi there, I'm Srinivas Annam, a Tech Savvy living in Bangalore, India. I'm a RIA lover in general and I like Flash, Flex, AIR & UI designing in particular. I'm working as Lead Software Engineer in Flex development team at Adobe, Bangalore.